


the hallow bright

by ailurish



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 15:13:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,615
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479868
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ailurish/pseuds/ailurish
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>"Time is linear for us, we’re shepherds of the Earth. Dean is something else. As you know.” Sam nods, throat tight. “An archangel.” “Yes.”</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the hallow bright

Sam writhes. The feel of his own skin is suffocating; he’s digging his fingers into the soft earth, clawing, grasping, trying to anchor himself in the reality of it – his body, just his, too small and too confining and threatening to split at the seams. He gasps, dragging in the burning air, and darkness crashes heavily; recedes again to the dull grey of the sky overhead, leaving him reeling between conscious thought and surrender. His legs curl in, the heels of his boots dragging through the earth. 

His body twists sideways of its own accord and this time when the world comes back into view, it’s Dean he sees, or the afterimage of him, eyes wide in surprise and maybe fear and then his hand grips onto Sam’s thrashing forearm and everything stills.

“Hey.”

Dean’s voice is a hush in the silence, the eye of the storm. Sam breathes in slowly, the first sweet breath of a drowning man. He can only stare at his brother, at the concern there on his face. “Sam,” Dean says, reassuring. “You’re okay. Got it? You’re okay.”

_You’re not_ , Sam wants to say, and _you’re different_ , but he just breathes instead, like this sudden clarity of the world is Dean’s doing. He breathes in, out. He watches Dean and settles into the extraordinary comfort of his own head, as if he’s new born.

Dean’s hand shakes slightly when he lets go of Sam’s wrist, holding it out like he’s placating a monster, only there’s no weapon in his other hand ready to strike. Sam feels a shiver go through him. His chest feels open and hollow, like seawater has cleansed everything and scrubbed the edges clean, still stinging of salt. Dean’s hands are checking him over, looking for wounds, a practiced ritual.

“Dean?” he says.

“Yeah.”

“You said yes.”

Dean’s face is back within sight, brow drawn. “I…”

Sam closes his eyes. The ground is hard at his back. “Sam?” Dean says, clutching at Sam’s jacket and giving it a quick shake. 

“’M okay,” Sam says. Dean’s grip relaxes, and neither of them say anything for so long. There’s a shifting sound and a shadow falls over them; Sam opens his eyes and Castiel is there, one hand on Dean’s shoulder. 

They make it back to the Impala somehow, and when Sam turns around the cemetery is just an old graveyard, crumbling headstones and the twisted, naked branches on the trees. Sam lays his hand on the hot metal roof of the car. He wants to laugh, wants to drive off with spinning tires and _Lonely is the Night_ blaring out over the sound of the wind, Dean singing along off-key. He turns around to look at Dean instead and says, fondly, “’Bye.”

Dean all but yanks him into a hug, a fierce one-armed grip around his neck, hand twisting into the back of Sam’s jacket. Sam doesn’t return in kind, wraps his arms slowly around Dean’s ribcage instead and listens to the mumbled “God dammit, Sam, Sammy, god dammit,” his name over and over again until Dean stumbles back and turns away, both hands shoved hard into his hair.

Sam smiles over at Cas, who hasn’t said a word, not one word since the last of the harried Enochian he’d been shouting at Dean right before the light was gone and Lucifer with it, and Castiel nods once. He settles a hand between Dean’s shoulder blades and then it’s just Sam standing there, alone in the cemetery. His hands don’t shake when he starts up the engine, and he turns the volume on _Rock of Ages_ up so high that he can’t hear anything else, not even the ringing in his ears.

-  
[Sam decides to settle into a house, and one day Anna shows up, heralding news that Dean is coming to talk to Sam.]

“I don’t understand.” 

Anna opens her mouth, presumably to speak, and then closes it with a note of frustration. “You _couldn’t_ understand, Sam. I’m trying to say this politely, but I can’t think of a way, so to be blunt: your human brain isn’t able able to understand how time works for an angel. Ivy League educated or not.” The last she says with a gentle smile, trying to soften her words.

But Sam is still standing at the bottom of his staircase, hand on the bannister, because he was halfway to turning down the hall to grab himself some lunch when an angel had decided to drop in unannounced, so he wasn’t exactly long on patience right now.

“So try. Put it in terms my feeble human brain can understand.”

“Sam.” Anna stares at him, pleading with her eyes in that way she has of being silently judgmental until her quarry catches on to his own pigheadedness. Sam sighs, rubbing at his eyes with one hand.

“Sorry, I’m sorry, it’s just… hard. I was prepared not to see him for _ages_ , and now he thinks he can drop in and leave again and it will just be fine? I already said goodbye.”

Anna’s expression softens and she nods, just a slight tilt of her head. “I know, you’re right. But I’m trying to tell you, he doesn’t see time that way anymore. It’s been… well, think of time not existing at all. You could do so many things, and it would feel both like no time had passed and like eons had passed all at once.”

“That’s what it’s like? For you?”

Anna shakes her head. “No, not for me, or for Cas. It’s linear for us, we’re shepherds of the Earth. Dean is something else. As you know.”

Sam nods, throat tight. “An archangel.”

“Yes.”

“So he’s been doing whatever up in Heaven and now he wants to visit me.”

“Or, he wants to visit you before he gets to work and loses track of Earth time. Either way, or both ways. It’s complicated. Anything I need to do has to happen within the confines of time, you see? It’s been two months since Lucifer’s destruction for you, and in a way, for me. But Dean…” She laughs. “Dean does whatever he wants with two months.”

Sam frowns, wanting to ask her what exactly he should be prepared for, here, but before he can even gather the breath to speak, she’s gone. With the rush of feathers, a gentle flap of wings – nothing to do with ethereal whiteness or ground-shaking presence – Dean replaces her. He’s wearing his usual jeans and jacket, the green one he was wearing when it all happened, and a wry smile.

“Hey, Sammy,” he says. He shoves his hands in his pockets. 

“Hey.” There’s silence. Dean looks casually at the walls, the ceiling, the door, taking it in with the slightest of approving head nods. Sam looks at Dean. “So, uh. Anna said you could bend time. That’s pretty cool.”

“Yeah,” Dean agrees. “It’s that thing you were trying to explain to me, spacetime? It’s kind of like… like time is indelible. Or… well, not. It’s supposed to be, but it wears out. It’s fading away but it lasts forever, so…” He trails off. “I still have no fucking clue.”

Sam finally laughs, eyes closed, and lets out all of his tension with it. The nervousness that had burrowed beneath his skin settles into a low, accepting warmth in his gut, and it feels good to laugh it all away. When he’ done, with a shake of his head and an eye roll – it’s probably disrespectful to roll your eyes at an archangel, he thinks, but Cas had never punished Dean for his disrespect anyway, and doesn’t Sam have the right?

Dean’s still looking at him when he finally settles down, still with that wry half-grin, and it’s ageless. Dean is comfortable in his own skin, Sam notices. (And it _is_ his own, and it will always be his own.)

Finally pulling in a breath, long and slow, Dean reaches into the pocket of his jeans with one hand. He pulls it out a fist, one long black cord escaping from his fingers.

“I modified it,” he explains, still clutching the amulet, then looks up at Sam. He reaches up to pull the cord over Sam’s head and Sam has to bow it a little, swallowing against the way his heartbeat is now thrumming in his ears. Dean settles the amulet around his brother’s neck and touches a finger to the pendant briefly. “When I’m around…”

Sam nods. “I’ll know.”

“Now listen,” Dean commands, stepping back, “Don’t expect me to show up and save your ass whenever you screw up, you got it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“And don’t give me that attitude.”

Sam snickers. Dean rolls his eyes heavenward and sighs long-sufferingly.

“Don’t be so damn dramatic, you jerk.”

Dean doesn’t miss a beat, like he had been waiting for it. He probably was. “Bitch.”

They grin at each other across the foyer, and in that moment it’s just them. Not the boy who beat the devil or the man who would be archangel; just Sam, just Dean, just all they’ve been through and all the battles they’ve won. Together.

“So that asshole Cas,” Dean says sarcastically, “always flapped off without warning. He really sucks at goodbyes, you know that?”

“Is this your warning, then?”

“Yeah. Cas ‘sends his regards’, because he’s a son of a bitch who’s too busy for a real greeting.”

The fondness in his voice has Sam grinning. Dean will wear down Castiel one day, he’s sure of it. They’ve got plenty of time.

Dean lifts a hand, palm up, and says, “See ya around, Sammy.”

“I better.”

Dean grins, and then he’s gone.

**Author's Note:**

> I still have vague ideas of maybe finishing this one day, but I make no promises. I thought about Dean there still being shenanigans up in Heaven and the other angels (Rapheal & Co., probably) needing Dean to help with their plans for a new apocalypse. And Dean's reaction:
> 
> Understanding hits Sam then. “You’re going to fall.” Dean shrugs, hands still deep in his pockets. When Sam just sighs the same sigh he does whenever Dean comes up with an exasperating, insane, probably-going-to-save-their-asses plan, Dean grins. “That’ll piss ‘em off pretty good, don’t you think?”



End file.
